


Intimacies

by Mertiya



Series: A Study Into Darkness [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Certain amounts of moral ambiguity, Everyone is a little bit broken actually, F/M, John makes things better, M/M, Porn With Plot, Sherlock is kinda broken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 19:27:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/827972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of the last day of the hearings of Khan and his crew, four different couples try to process the aftermath of the Khan incident.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intimacies

**Author's Note:**

> Phew, okay, this was way harder to write/took way longer than I was expecting. But it's written now! I'm not sure if I'm finished with this series or not; I'm leaving it as "unfinished" for now, but if I do come back to it, it will probably not be immediately. I have several other fics in the works that I really need to finish first. Anyways, thanks to everyone who read! I'm glad y'all have enjoyed this so far. :)

            The bar is dimly-lit and crowded, very different from the clean, white halls and lighting of the _Enterprise_.  Kirk grins as he sips his Bajoran rum. It’s the first time Bones has let him out of sickbay since his irradiation, and he’s still feeling his feet a little.  Both Spock and Bones, separately, elicited a promise from him that he wouldn’t get into any fights, and he’d promised.  Probably it’s a good thing.  He should get used to not getting into a bar fight every time he goes out; it’s not a good reputation to have as a Starfleet captain.

            The rum burns his throat on its way down, and he savors it, surreptitiously gazing around at the other patrons of the bar.  He’s really in the mood for a good time tonight (and to give someone else a good time), sick of hospital beds and mediscanners and seeing Bones’ worried face.  He needs a night to forget about everything.

            Most of the patrons are human in this part of town, but there’s a few Andorans and one or two Centaurians mixed in.  He stares for a while at the pretty, dark-haired girl a few seats down, until someone who is obviously her boyfriend comes back and sits beside her.  Kirk sighs a little, amused, but also touched.  The large boyfriend (possibly not fully human) touches her back gingerly, and she looks up with a smile.  Romantic.  Kirk’s a little bit of a sucker for romance.  He’s always looking for it, in a way, but he also has a definite sense he’s never going to find it (not long-term, anyway).  He’s a starship captain, first and foremost, after all.

            He shakes his head.  Dying has apparently made him annoyingly introspective. 

            The dark-haired girl and her boyfriend are leaving.  They slide out of their bar-stools to reveal the person sitting on the other side, a familiar fair head bending determinedly over a full glass of Vulcan ale.

            Kirk slides into the seat beside her.  “Can I buy you a drink?” he asks, and Carol Marcus looks up with an annoyed glance.

~

            The door makes its peculiar chiming noise.  Greg rolls up on his bed with a groan.  It’s getting late, and he was thinking about trying to sleep, although he suspects he’ll just wake up in a few hours with nightmares.  “Come in!” he shouts, but there’s no answer.  Whoever it is probably didn’t hear him.

            He gets up, wincing slightly (three-hundred-years’ sleep has left him with a deep, aching stiffness he can’t seem to shake off) and hunts for a minute until he finds the door controls.  He got trapped inside this room for a while yesterday, and that was pretty embarrassing.  He’s too old for this damn technology, and he laughs a little bitterly when he remembers saying that as a joke to Sally, a few years ago plus three hundred.

            It’s Molly, shifting slightly from one foot to the other, her hands twisting and winding in the fabric of the slightly-too-big onesie affair they gave all of them.  He hasn’t seen her since waking up, hasn’t looked for her, in case she needed time to herself.  He thinks they might have had something before waking up in the twenty-third century, but after the war started, they hadn’t really—to be honest, Greg had stopped talking to her.  Probably shouldn’t have done that, but he felt so dirty.  Didn’t really want to talk to anyone.

            Is she going to yell at him for that?  Slap him, even?  His wife (god, he’s a widower, the divorce hadn’t even come through when all of this happened) would’ve probably done a lot of the yelling and weeping.

            Molly gives a little hiccupping noise and puts her arms around him, in a jerky, quick motion.  His hands reflexively fall to her back.

            “Can I come in?” she asks after a minute.

            “Wh-oh, sure.”

            She brushes past him and heads for the bed.  One of the problems with these little rooms they’ve been given is that they don’t really have much in the way of seating, but he’s not going to complain.  They’re being put up quite well for suspected war criminals.

            “Good to see you,” he says, sitting on the bed beside her.

            “How are you?” she asks, tracing little circles on the blanket with one finger, not looking at him.

            “Oh, you know.” He laughs, but his eyes slide away from her, and then he doesn’t know what to say.

            Molly looks up at him, her chin stuck out determinedly.  “Soldiers aren’t war criminals, you know,” she says.  “And you know what they did to Sherlock.  They’re not going to lock us away.”

            He looks down at his hands.  “Maybe they should,” he mumbles and stops.  He wasn’t intending to say that.

            Molly takes his shoulder and pulls him round to look at her.  “Nope,” she says, almost flippantly, and then she kisses him.

~

            Spock’s late back to their shared quarters tonight, and he looks preoccupied, far away, and very Vulcan, when he does return.  Uhura’s had a long day herself, called to testify at the tail end of the proceedings, but Spock is the one who has been carrying the memories of everyone involved around inside his head, which must be wearing, though he’ll never admit it.

            They replicate some Vulcan plomeek soup and eat a companionable dinner together; they chat about a new language algorithm the universal translators have been fitted with, and after dinner, Uhura touches her finger lightly to the back of Spock’s hand and asks, “Would you like a musical evening?”

            He pauses and considers.  “Yes, that sounds enjoyable.”

            Uhura’s sheet music is in a pile under their bed; Spock’s Vulcan lute is tucked carefully in its case in a corner of the room.  She fetches them both out and takes her usual place beside him on the couch.  This has been a tradition since before the two of them were involved.  It was one of the things that brought them together at the Academy, in fact.  Uhura leans back and watches Spock as the two of them harmonize on old ballads.

                  She lets him take the lead tonight, and he runs through variations on Schubert’s _Lieder_ , before swiftly transitioning into several old Vulcan ballads.  Uhura sings softly, turning the pieces into something more of a duet than a song.  She can see that Spock is still deep in thought, and the intertwining melodies turn plaintive and haunting as he swoops from song to song, embellishing one, varying another, until Uhura is hard-put to keep up.  Both of them enjoy improvisation, but usually Spock is a more giving partner; tonight he plays intricate waterfalls of notes that don’t follow any pattern Uhura can follow, and eventually she settles into a humming overlay that complements and supports his playing, but doesn’t require her to try and put words to it; her voice becomes the accompaniment to his solo.

                  His playing swirls darker and more frenzied, his fingers flying across the strings, though the expression on his face does not change.  Finally, he sweeps into a sharp, glittering, mounting wave of sound that ends in a jangling, discordant explosion, and stares at the lute for a long moment before setting it aside.

                  “My apologies,” he says stiffly.

                  “For what?  That was beautiful.”

                  “It was...turbulent,” he responds, his voice distracted.

                  “You’re still thinking about Khan and the others, aren’t you?”  She hadn’t meant to say that, had meant to let him think it all out by himself, but it slips between her teeth, shallow and hoarse, before she can suck it back.

                  “Mmm,” he says, and she leans against his side, feeling his arm fall around her shoulders, a gesture so automatic she almost doesn’t even register the sense of comfort it affords her.

                  “Me too,” she admits.  “It just doesn’t want to go away.”

                  “Yes,” he says, almost wonderingly, and he looks at her, dips his head simply, and kisses the corner of her mouth, light and gentle and careful.  She smiles against his lips and lets her hands slide slowly up the back of his neck, deepening the kiss before letting him pull away.

                  “Maybe shower-talk time?” she suggests, and he nods, the hint of a smile playing around the corners of his mouth (he doesn’t smile, he tells her, but you can see it in his eyes and in the twitch of his lips).

                  “I would like to hear your thoughts on the matter,” he tells her.

                  “Right back atcha, lover.”  She winks, and he kisses her forehead before rising from the couch.

~

                  “John.”

                  He comes awake to find Sherlock bending across him on the small bed, eyes enormous, haunted, and he sits up instantly and enfolds him in his arms.  

                  “Did you have a nightmare?” he asks.  “Shhhh, love, it’s all right.”  The bed’s too small for two; there’s another bed in the adjoining room, but they never sleep apart.  If he’s not there when Sherlock wakes, Sherlock destroys things.  A week ago, John got up in the middle of the night, bleary-eyed, to get a drink of water, and before he could get back, Sherlock had put a hand through the window, the glass of which ought to have been too strong for him to break.  John got back to find security in the room, Sherlock with his hand around a broken piece of glass wanting to know what they’d done with John, while they tried to subdue him with a hypospray.

                  He’d managed to talk everybody down, fold Sherlock in his arms and whisper to him until he let them spray new skin across the deep, bloody cut (almost to the bone), but John had resolved to be doubly careful in future.  

                  “John,” Sherlock rumbles, voice sleep-roughened and cracking with some emotion John cannot identify.  “I want...”

                  He pushes John down to the bed and kisses him desperately, hungrily, and, shocked, John moans up into the kiss.  They’ve been sharing a bed pretty much since John was unfrozen, but the kisses and touches have been mostly chaste, reassurance and solid reality for Sherlock--and, if he’s being honest, for John as well, flung forward in time to find not only is Sherlock almost the only one of _all the people in his life he ever knew_ to be still alive, but Sherlock himself is broken, twisted and mangled almost beyond recognition.  Only once in a while does John see the old Sherlock peering through the volatile, violent shell he’s become, and, fuck, that hurts.

                  He realizes he’s stopped responding to the kiss, caught up in his own thoughts, and Sherlock is pulling back, looking nervous.  “Is this--all right?” he asks haltingly, and John curses himself for the way he seems to fall into reveries these days, a reaction to the fact that he spends long hours just holding Sherlock, stroking him, whispering reassurances to someone he’s not wholly certain understands them, begging Sherlock to come back.

                  “Yes,” John says, rough and raw, because while he’d never, ever push this, if it’s something Sherlock wants, he’s more than happy to give it to him.  “Oh, god, _yes_.”

                  Sherlock’s lips quirk in the first smile John has seen him make, the lost, confused expression dropping into a smirk for a moment, and he kisses him again, still tentative, still unsure, but with a sigh that makes John’s heart beat faster and his breath catch.

~

                  After sitting through the hearing today, Carol was plenty ready to just go out and get smashed, if she’s going to be completely honest.  It’s a confusing, messy business to watch Dad’s name dragged through the mud like this, to try to connect the loving father who brought her up to the man who is posthumously accused of treason and several counts of abduction and assault; not to mention hearing the memories of the man who used to be her childhood idol droned out, first in Spock’s emotionless voice, then in Khan’s himself.

                  She isn’t sure why she did this to herself.  She only had to be there for long enough to confirm that Spock’s testimony was accurate, but she sat through the whole thing, and she watched as they brought Khan in, flanked by two guards, with another man who was identified as John Watson, M.D., another of the revived soldiers.

                  Khan walked with his head bowed loosely, face blank, and responded to the questions politely and almost as dispassionately as Spock, but she noticed he would not let go of Watson, his hand holding the other’s in a grip so crushing that both their knuckles were white.  One of the Starfleet commanders asked if it was really necessary for Watson to be there, as they’d already heard his testimony.  The look that flashed across Khan’s face was the same look she had seen when he had brought his boot down on her knee, and she flinched automatically.

                  Spock stepped in and smoothly said that in the medical opinion of Doctor McCoy, Khan was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, among a number of other afflictions, and it would be both unwise and cruel to separate the two of them.  The commander seemed skeptical, but let it pass, and Khan subsided immediately.

                  After listening to all of that, to the quiet descriptions of violence, to the descriptions of the things that were done to Khan himself and that he did to others, all in the same deep baritone, she’d almost been sick, and she hadn’t known who to feel sorry for and who to be angry with, and now all she wanted to do was go out and get drunk.  The last person she thought she’d see would be Kirk, who hadn’t been at the hearing.  He was _one_ of the last people she’d wanted to see, too.  She hadn’t formed a particularly wonderful impression of him--an immature, impulsive man; even if he _had_ saved them all, that didn’t mean she had to like him.

                  He gives her a slightly bashful smile.  “Bad day?” he asks.

                  “What do you care?” she snaps, the words dropping out before she can stop them.  She sighs.  “Sorry,” she says.  “That was rude.”  She doesn’t like him, but it’s not fair to take this out on him.

                  He shrugs.  “It’s okay.  You didn’t slap me.  That happens a lot.”

                  She isn’t expecting that, and she has to laugh a little.

                  “Anyway, I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he continues.  “Should’ve realized you’d have a lot on your mind.  You were at the hearing today, right?”

                  She gives a jerky little nod.  She really doesn’t want to talk about this.

                  “So was I,” he says.  “D’you want me to leave you alone?”

                  “Please,” she says tersely and goes back to her drink.  She feels him move away down the table, which surprises her and increases her respect for him.  She turns slightly in her chair and follows his progress around the bar.

                  It becomes obvious quickly that he’s trying to pick somebody up and not having a lot of luck.  He strikes out twice, nearly gets punched by an angry boyfriend coming back to find him chatting up a not-unwilling-looking young lady, who watches him go with a slightly disappointed look in her eyes.  He pauses, after that, in the middle of the bar, drink held loosely in one hand, an empty, odd look on his face for a moment, before his face registers simple disappointment, and he laughs ruefully and starts heading for the door.

                  Carol’s not sure why she gets up and follows him, catching his arm on the way out.  Maybe it’s because he looks as if the day has hit him as hard as it’s hit her (and she may have lost her dad, but he lost a fair number of his crew, and, from what she’s heard, Christopher Pike, who was like a father to him).  Maybe it’s because he’s hot and obviously not looking for anything serious.  Maybe it’s because he left her alone when she asked and now she’s not sure she actually wants to be alone tonight.

                  “Are you trying to get laid?” she asks, because, fuck it, she’s tired and doesn’t have the energy to dance around this right now.

                  Startled, his mouth opens slightly.  “Are you...uh...”

                  She rolls her eyes.  “Yes, I am coming onto you.  I’ve had a shitty day, and so have you, and I was going to get drunk, but I’m not sure I want to anymore.”

                  “Oh,” he says.  Then he grins, boyish and charming, and offers her his arm, his expression only half-mocking (and most of that directed at himself).  “Okay.  Your room or mine?”

~

                  It takes all of Molly’s reserves of courage to kiss Greg.  She doesn’t know if wants it, or if he even can want it.  There was a time, before the war started, when they were getting very close, and she thought that maybe there was something there (and she remembers all the way back to the rather disappointing Christmas party in Sherlock’s flat and the way he looked at her then, completely gobsmacked), but when they started going into combat, after the first few times, when he tried to joke, he just withdrew.

                  Molly knows that no one expected her to make a good soldier, and she didn’t expect it from herself.  She thought she’d freeze up, but the adrenaline and the medication took care of that, thought she’d be crippled with guilt, but she couldn’t be, because she had to take care of Greg and Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson.  So, yes, she killed people, and she does regret it, and she’ll probably regret it every day of her life, but she also knows she didn’t have a choice, and it’s all sort of faded in her head now, because that was never the important part of her day, awful as that sounds.

                  It’s worse for Greg, because he used to hunt people who killed other people.  Murderers and soldiers _are_ different, Molly thinks, but it’s a thin, narrow line.  He did eat without prompting, unlike Sherlock, who used to sit and stare at his hands in the night, thinking and thinking and thinking, until Molly forced a bowl of soup between them and then watched and prodded until he ate a few mouthfuls without even a scathing remark.  At least she was able to enlist some of the other soldiers to take care of Mrs. Hudson.  They were all more or less nice people, though Molly thought she would have been terrified of them if it hadn’t been so important not to be, and if they hadn’t gone through so much team-building and work to get the little army working together properly.  Of course, she, Mrs. Hudson, and Greg were still the odd ones out--and Sherlock, of course, but in a different way.  It was funny, but John would have fitted in better than any of them, and he would probably have been able to keep Sherlock a lot saner than Molly could, though she tried.

                  But there’s no way home.  The only thing they can do now is pick up the pieces and keep going as best as they can.  At least Sherlock’s got John again, and Molly’s so lonely and bored she could scream, waiting to find out how Starfleet is going to deal with them.  They have been treated politely and rather better, perhaps, than Molly would have expected.  They are not allowed to leave, which is not unreasonable, but it still means she’s been too alone, for too long, and finally, after today’s hearing, she’s done with waiting for someone else to come to her.

                  Greg sits loosely at first, then lifts one awkward hand to press against her hair, deepening the kiss a little.  She wriggles against him with a little gasp, because she wasn’t expecting the arousal plummeting into the pit of her stomach to hit so suddenly, but apparently her body is determined to have its say, and what it’s saying is that it’s definitely been too long.  Oh god, is this too much?  Too soon?  But Greg lets out a throaty breath at her movement and tips her head up to kiss gently and thoroughly down the side of her throat.

                  She’s twisted at a funny angle, stretching her side, and she has to pull back to gulp for breath.  Greg lets her go instantly, swallows, says, “Okay?”

                  Molly nods, biting her lip.  “Just let me--”  Oh, what the hell.  She stands up, straightens her clothing slightly, and then swings herself up onto the bed so that her knees are on both sides of Greg’s legs, and she’s straddling him, looking down.  Greg gawps up at her, and it sends a thrilling rush of power through her, because just for tonight, she’s--she’s not going to _worry_ about anything.  From this position, it’s easy to swoop down for another kiss, her hands on his shoulders.

~

                  The water on Uhura’s shoulders is heavy and solid and warm, and she’s glad they’re on shore leave, because sonic showers just aren’t the same, even if they are arguably more efficient.  Spock slots comfortably in behind her, and for several minutes, they stand in companionable silence, passing the soap and shampoo back and forth.  She feels his fingers parting the wet hair on the back of her neck, feels his lips drop an insubstantial kiss in the same spot.

                  Surprisingly, it’s Spock who eventually breaks the silence, as she cants back against him for a moment.  “I am conflicted,” he says.

                  “Me too,” she says honestly, turning around to face him, “but you go first.”

                  His lips are moving, as if he’s having trouble putting words to what he’s thinking, unusual for Spock.  When he speaks, it’s with a slight frown.  “It is more unsettling than I expected to have these memories in my head.”

                  She waits, then prompts him.  “Why?”

                  “Khan is disturbingly similar to myself.”

                  That’s--not what she expected.  Her first impulse is to scoff, but Spock’s the one with the memories in his head.  So she justs waits, playing her fingers gently down along the cusp of his jaw.  “Both of us are highly intelligent beings with an inherent distrust of emotion.  Both of us possess an extraordinary capacity for viciousness.  The difference, of course, is that, in my case, these traits are, to a certain extent, cultural, while, in Khan’s, they are simply a product of an unusual mind.  I do not know what would have happened to me if I had been in a similar position to the one he found himself in, but I believe there is at least a possibility I must have followed a similar pattern.”

                  Uhura stares at Spock.  She can’t imagine the cool facade breaking into the feral fury Khan displayed on several occasions--but then, Khan himself had been icily courteous until he felt that his friends and lover were threatened.

                  “I was reluctant to tell you this,” Spock continues, “as I was afraid you might look at me differently.”  He pauses and doesn’t speak, but the question hangs in the air.

                  Uhura shakes her head, pulls his head down and kisses him.  “No,” she says quietly.  “I just think of Khan differently.”

~

                  Sherlock’s fingers are quivering aspen leafs along John’s collar-bone, his breath sighing and jagged in John’s ear.  He’s gotten John’s collar open, but he’s stalled, and John waits patiently, hands on his back, stroking in rhythmic patterns.  “We don’t have to do this,” he says finally.

                  “No!” Sherlock’s whole body shudders against his.  “No, John, I want this, I need you.”  Then he adds, so quietly that John has to strain to hear it, and isn’t entirely sure he’s meant to, “ _Please_.”

                  John didn’t want to stop before, and he doesn’t want to stop now, but--”Are you _sure_?” he says, because he’s afraid, he’s so afraid that he’ll hurt Sherlock, or that he’ll be taking advantage.

                  “Yes,” Sherlock says, low and husky.  “Yes, yes I am _sure_ , I may have had a certain loss of impulse control due to the drugs, but I am in my right mind, John, there is no question of my consent, for god’s sake, I need you _now_!”  

                  It’s the way he spits the final ‘now’, the way his voice rises slightly like a petulant child kept too long from a toy, that finally decides John.  There’s enough frustration mixed in with the desperation, enough of Sherlock’s characteristic inability to wait to soothe John’s doubt.

                  “All right, then,” he says, reaching to the hem of his pajama top, but Sherlock slaps his hand away and takes it himself, running his long-fingered hands tremulously over John’s stomach and hips, then raking his nails upward as he yanks the piece of clothing off.

                  “Ouch, _Jesus_ ,” John exclaims, but Sherlock takes no notice; he’s already fumbling at John’s pajama bottoms, but he stops before he’s gotten very far, and, with a sudden light in his eyes, he knocks John backward onto the bed, straddling him, and starts kissing John’s scar.  “Oof, _careful_ ,” John says, but he’s not sure that Sherlock even hears him, and John’s admonition turns into a laugh and then into a breathy moan.

                  Sherlock explores the scar for some time, in fits and starts, a strange mix of tongue and lips and teeth with no discernable pattern, not entirely arousing but not unpleasant either, and John is content to allow Sherlock to continue his ministrations for as long as he wants, his eyes sliding lazily shut as he cards his hands through Sherlock’s tangled hair.

                  Sherlock’s lips are abruptly gone, and John’s eyes fly open as they reappear on his neck, nipping roughly up beneath his chin, his hands suddenly cupping John’s face and holding it in place as he plants kiss after desperate kiss on John’s lips, then his cheeks and forehead and eyes, John squirming and trying to catch his lips, but always just a touch too slow, so that he catches the corner of Sherlock’s mouth and his chin.  

                  Laughter bubbles out of John, clean and cathartic, and Sherlock pauses, staring down at him again, the pupils of his eyes dilated and dark; then he’s laughing too, a stuttering baritone chuff that rises and falls irregularly.  His elbows land on either sides of John’s stomach as he collapses across him, the fabric of his top rough against John’s bare skin.

                  For a moment, they just lie like that, noses barely touching, breathing each other’s breath, and then John teases up Sherlock’s top, murmuring, “Don’t you think you have too many clothes on?”  His fingers trail up Sherlock’s sides as he divests Sherlock of his shirt, and Sherlock gasps and groans, head flung back, and thrusts up against him twice, startling a gasp of his own from John.  Sherlock freezes for an instant and then surges back into frantic motion, tearing the shirt the rest of the way off his head and scrabbling without much coordination at John’s trousers.  With some help from John, he finally succeeds at getting them off, then slides down the bed.

                  John tenses in expectation, but all he feels are moist, delicate touches against his inner thigh, Sherlock’s lips and then his tongue, and then Sherlock is mouthing against his leg, just mouthing, and John hisses, biting his lip, heat building in his stomach and diffusing slowly downward.

                  Too many things happening at once.  John’s awareness keeps darting from point to point, from Sherlock’s mouth trailing kisses to his hand caressing John’s knee, to the other hand, scraping and tugging at his back, a desperate arhythmic motion, to John’s own hands, clutching and feeling along Sherlock’s shoulders and his head, stroking and clutching at his hair, and he moans, “Fuck, yes, _oh_ , love, _oh_...” trailing off into a whispering aching sigh.

                  It’s only a minute more before his feet land, somehow, on Sherlock’s shoulders, and Sherlock looks up at him, wide-eyed and worshipful, and finally, _finally_ , takes John’s cock in his mouth.

~

                  They go to Kirk’s place.  Carol doesn’t want to go back to her own, not tonight, maybe not ever.  She can’t face the photographs of her and Dad all around, can’t face the empty place on her mantelpiece where Khan used to sit--she didn’t sleep with him anymore, but he was her favorite stuffed animal as a child, so she never really wanted to get rid of him.

                  Kirk’s room is expansive and bright, like Kirk himself.  The blankets on his bed are printed with an abstract pattern of bright colors, which appear even more garish because the bed is not made, and the colors swirl together like paints in a paint-bucket.  He gives her a sheepish grin and straightens the hurriedly, while she continues to look around.  There are models of various starships hanging from the ceiling, and some surprisingly sophisticated abstract art mixed in with posters of some popular bands.  Altogether, it’s a room with a lot of personality, more complex than she might have expected.  

                  As Kirk finishes straightening the bedclothes, Carol strips off her uniform top and leggings, so that when he turns back she’s standing in her bra and panties again, hands crossed across her chest, eyebrows raised.  He has the grace to blush.  “Um, sorry about that,” he says, one hand on the back of his neck, and she has to give him credit, he does look genuinely sorry.  “It’s okay now, though, right?”

                  “If you take your clothes off too,” Carol points out with a small smile.

                  “Mmm, yeah.”  He laughs as he pulls off top and shucks off his trousers, then strikes a pose.  “How’s this for eye-candy?”

                  Carol has to laugh as well.  “Arrogant but cute.”

                  “A starship captain has a right to be arrogant!”

                  “ ‘I am the great starship captain who couldn’t even pick up a woman in a bar’,” she mocks him, and he sticks his tongue out at her and wiggles it before grabbing her around the waist and making her squeal as he tosses her to the bed.  

                  “What about you?” he asks, straddling her.

                  “Oh, _I_ just took pity on you,” she responds loftily, but she’s still laughing behind the attempted straight face, laughing shrill and a little desperate.  “Besides,” she manages.  “You didn’t pick _me_ up.”

                  He sobers as she continues to laugh weakly.  “Anything off limits?” he asks; she shrugs.

                  “Honestly I like topping,” she says candidly, which--this may actually be the first time she’s said that straight out the first time.

                  “You got it.”  He winks roguishly, and she finds herself squealing again as he reverses their positions suddenly and looks up at her, his hands already unhooking her bra with practiced skill, and she begins to think this was actually a better idea than she gave herself credit for.

                  She was expecting him to be a rough fuck, and, to be fair, she’s partly right.  There’s quite a lot of biting and shouting and bouncing, but there’s also some slow, lazy moments, some giggling (not all of it hers), teasing, and general playfulness.  He’s a more considerate lover than she would have expected, and it’s nice to curl up against his side, nuzzle against his neck, and whisper, “Thanks,” into his ear.

                  “Hmmmmhm,” he responds, which she takes to mean, _you’re welcome_ , and, as he pulls her against his side, his breathing is already slipping into the calm, measured rhythm of sleep.

She stretches and curls and uncurls her toes, then relaxes back against him, not trying to fight the pull of sleep on her mind as well.

~

                  They’ve progressed rather beyond the kissing stage by now, and Molly’s fingers wrestle with the zip on the front of Greg’s jumpsuit, but it’s so hard to find purchase when he’s already easing the clothes off her shoulders, and her fingers are shaking so badly, because, _oh god_ , she has wanted this for so long, and she’s still afraid that she’s going to cock it up-- _no_.  Not like that.  Oh god, did she really think that?

                  But he’s looking at her like she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, his mouth open, his eyes wide, that same gawping, gawky look he gave her at the Christmas party, and Molly finds she’s crying a little, because that’s the look she’s been missing for so long.

                  “What’s wrong?” he asks, and Molly sniffs.

                  “Nothing’s wrong,” she answers, and she feels his finger, clumsy, brushing the tears off her cheek.

                  “You’re crying,” he points out.  “Usually means there’s a problem.”

                  She gulps and sniffs, smiling broadly at the same time.  “Not anymore.”  She kisses him again, tears trapped between their mouths, the kiss turned salty but sweet still beneath the salt, and she moans into his mouth, tongues tangling together, callused hands sliding across her breasts; this time she gives a little squeak, which is a bit mortifying, all things considered, but when her eyes fly open he’s giving her a sort of proud little smile.

                  “C’mere,” he says hoarsely, and, with one hand under her back, he swings her around until she’s lying back on the bed, half-undressed, and he’s kissing right down her stomach, and oh-- _oh_.  She gasps, her entire body seizing up, trembling with the sudden waves of heat coiling up from between her legs.  Her throat is vibrating, and she’s trying not to move, but she’s squirming, and someone somewhere is making throaty little gasps but that can’t be _her_ , can it?  Hot, aching heat between her legs, a finger sliding inside her; she seizes up around his hand and yelps something that might be his name as the orgasm crashes over her.

                  She gazes blearily up at him.  He’s looking much too smug, and she slaps his face lightly, more of a brush than a slap, really.

                  His eyebrows quirk in a pleased expression, and she squirms up against him, sliding a hand down to catch at his cock, and _that_ wipes the expression off his face, as he groans mindlessly and bucks against her hand.  She’s moving against him again, lethargic and still fizzing with warmth, but enough that his breathing is getting short and fast and ragged.  A strangled noise erupts from his throat, and then his hand is on hers.  She pulls her hand back right away.

                  “What is it?” she asks.

                  He coughs and clears his throat, takes several seconds to allow his breathing to calm and his eyes to open.  “Um, bit enthusiastic there.  Which is fine, if you want me to, I mean...”  His silver hair is plastered to his head.  “Dunno what else we’re going to do, come to think of it, it’s not like this place stocks condoms.”

                  Molly tries to laugh, but all that comes out is a squeak.  “What about the replicators?  They’ll make anything, right?”

                  “Supposedly, but it took me an hour to make a cup of coffee that didn’t taste like dishwater.”

                  Molly feels her face fall, then she goes a little pale.  “But--you already did me--you didn’t even _ask_ if--”

                  He scratches the back of his head.  “Yeah, not the smartest thing I’ve ever done, I guess.  But--um, do you--have anything?”

                  Molly shakes her head, quickly.  “No, I’d have stopped you, but...”

                  “Then it’s fine.  You can go back to your hand till we work out how to get those damn machines working--I mean--if you want to, either way...”

                  Molly bites her lip.  “You don’t, um, have anything, right?”

                  He shakes his head.  “No, got tested after I found out the missus, well, anyways, I’m clean.”

                  “Oh, good,” Molly says with relief, pushing him over onto his back.

                  “Wait, oy, Molls, what are you--”

                  The endearment sends a little shiver of pleasure down Molly’s still-tingling spine as she undoes the zip of his garment and slides his cock free gently with one hand.  When she takes him in her mouth, he gives out a gulp and a muffled expletive, one clutching hand landing on her head, scrabbling for purchase, pulling at her hair painfully before dropping to her shoulders.  “Sorry,” he pants.  “Sorry!  Oh, _fuck_ , that’s--”  

                  Molly makes a pleased little hum and takes him as far as she can, feeling a frown furrowing her face.  She’s never very confident about her own skills, and her mouth’s too small, and she’s always afraid of scraping with her teeth.  Greg doesn’t seem to have a problem with what she’s doing, though, as she works his cock with tongue and hands; he’s murmuring a steady stream of nonsense words and quivering as he tries not to thrust.  It’s a bad position for Molly; she’s stiff and twisted up in a funny sort of way, but her muscles are still all pliant from earlier, which helps, and it’s obviously not going to take very long, in any case.

                  Sure enough, just a few minutes later, Greg is seizing up underneath her, gasping out something completely garbled, and Molly swallows without too much difficulty and sits back.  Greg lies back for a minute with his eyes shut; then he swings himself into a sitting position and kisses her, almost hungrily, hand sliding around the back of her skull through her hair.

                  Molly freezes at first.  She’s never had anyone kiss her after she’s gone down on them, sometimes not for quite a long time after.  One boyfriend insisted she brush her teeth right away.  But Greg’s opened his eyes now, clearly worried he’s done something wrong, and that’s so far from the truth that Molly says hastily, “No, no, you’re fine, you’re fine,” and kisses him back.

                  The kiss is gentle, but still broken-edged, a resting place in the center of the storm that they haven’t made their way out of yet.  But for the first time, as they lie back, sticky and twined together, Molly finds herself really believing that they will.

~

                  “What do you think they’ll decide?” Uhura asks sleepily as she nestles against Spock’s side.

                  It takes him a minute, but he is able to consider her question rationally and divided from the storm of emotion he has taken into himself, divided from the core of darkness he is rather afraid was always inside him, that he has only now properly recognized.  “I believe they will rule that Khan’s crew is not guilty, for the evidence suggests they acted merely as soldiers under orders, not as the war criminals that they seem to have been accused off.  They were, of course, extraordinarily efficient as soldiers and therefore will probably have to undergo a number of psychological tests.  It’s possible they may attempt to reverse the effects of the drugs they were given.”

                  Uhura nods seriously, snuggling down into his side in the bed.  “And Khan?”

                  “I don’t know,” he answers honestly.  “He, more than any of the others, is certainly guilty of murder, possibly treason.  I suspect, however, they may find extenuating circumstances, for his judgment and brain chemistry were clearly affected by the things that were done to him, and mitigating circumstances, in view of the services he was known for offering before he was molded into a soldier and forced to kill.

                  “I believe that whatever sentence is meted out to him, however, will include an attempt to reverse the damage to his mind, a process which, it seems, his lover may have already begun.”

                  She’s silent for a minute, then kisses him softly on the cheek, caresses his hair.  “Can you get rid of the memories?” she asks.

                  “No,” Spock says simply, “but they will fade, as memories do.”  He does not add that it is invaluable to him to be able to experience the thin, fragile line separating sanity and insanity, savagery and humanity, without having to cross it himself.  In a strange, deep part of himself, he must be grateful to Khan.

                  His peace is here, wrapped in his lover’s dark arms, safe in the knowledge that he will return to his post beneath his dearest friend within a week or two, and he hopes that the man whose memories he now bears will be able to find a similar tranquility.

~

                  The clothes are gone, finally, and he has John spread out, naked, beneath him, and he doesn’t believe it, can’t believe it, sure he’s going to wake any moment and find that John is taken from him again, so he has to keep stopping to taste, nip, touch at another part of John, to remind himself that, no, this is really real.  He’s in a kind of frenzy, but frightened, frightened of hurting John, frightened of scaring him, frightened of losing him again, and his fingers twist round and around, mindless circles on John’s flank, brushing tantalizingly near where they actually want to be, but he’s stalled, staring, fruitless, caught in the grip of naked terror and shame.  

                  Shame, because he’s no longer the man John fell in love with.  Because he’s killed so many, with his own hands, killed them and been glad of it.  And perhaps the drugs, yes, but that’s simply an excuse for a dark streak he’s always known that he possessed.  He has always known he was not good enough for this man who lies beneath him, vulnerable and beautiful, but he has never had such clear proof of it.

                  “You OK?” John’s eyes open, so blue, blue as azure, blue as the blood seen tracing through his pale wrists, blue as the four-door sedan that snatched the Balmers’ child, which they spent three weeks tracking down, but they found her.  He had to endure the tearful gratitude of her parents, but it was worth it for the way that John looked at him.  

                  “Oh, love.”  He doesn’t know what John sees in his face, doesn’t want to know.  

                  “Please,” he blurts, and it’s foolish enough to be begging, without even knowing what you’re begging for.  He could have John right here, right now, chemical-enhanced muscles so much stronger, now, even than John’s, and just to see that thought rising up in his tumultuous mind makes him cringe and claw at the sheets, because, “I’m not--not worth it,” he chokes out, the words unsteady.

                  “You are,” John says fiercely; John’s hands lie on his naked hips.  “You are the most valuable man in the world to me.  So just stop this.”

                  He can’t form the words to tell John that he’s not sure he is that man, anymore, that he is not a shadowy doppelganger who’s stolen another’s form, and he’s not a good enough man to stop this, so he stays propped on his elbows over John, trembling and trembling.  Two splashes of moisture land in the stretched planes of John’s stomach, nearly in the same spot, but one of them slides straight down, while the other trickles tortuously a zigzag route.  Chaos theory, he remembers, _Jurassic Park_ , never liked pop culture but John wanted to watch it, so they did, and perhaps he would have deleted it, but to delete it would have been to delete the feeling of John’s head against his shoulder, the sound of his breaths growing a little more rushed as he became more aroused from the close proximity.

                  “Shhhhh, shhhhh, we can stop, d’you want to stop?  Too much?”

                  “Not enough,” he finds himself saying hoarsely, and his hands flutter desperately into action again, sliding up John’s thighs, cock half-hard now, too worried to be aroused anymore, and that’s not right, John wanted this, John has been waiting for this, and he is not a good enough man to stop this.

                  His first clumsy grasp sends the lubricant spinning off the window-ledge and onto the bed, and he curses and clutches it again, scooping it much too liberally onto his fingers.  In his clumsy haste, his fingers swipe across the covers, leaving a line of glistening jelly behind, like a snail’s (comparison noted, snail or oil-covered fingers, might be important, was it important once? but the thought whirls away).  Rough noise of someone breathing harshly, and John cries out as he penetrates him with a single finger.

                  He freezes at the sound, not moving, feeling the clench of tight muscle around his finger, not knowing if he should pull back, and, oh god, why can’t he read John anymore?  John’s eyes open lazily, and he takes a shuddering breath, “I’m fine, you’re not hurting me, _please_ , oh _fuck_ \--”

                  Good noise, then.  Slightly encouraged, he moves the finger, and John’s full-throated moan this time is unmistakably one of pleasure.  This, he can still give John this, this is John, he is _here_ , he wants to be here.  Focus narrowing now, to the junction of his finger and John, his finger _inside_ John, slick warmth all around, and the shivering feeling of John’s muscles contracting around his finger.  Sounds blur in his ears, and it takes to long to realize the sounds are making words, John chanting, “More, please, _please_ , oh god,” before his voice rises to a long incomprehensible whine.

                  He pauses to kiss John’s knee as he slides the second finger in, and John’s eyes open again, a smile crossing his face, but he can’t keep looking.  The expression on John’s face is too inexpressibly tender; it hurts too much to watch.  John shouldn’t be looking at him like that, and once more he’s suddenly filled with inexplicable rage, and he has to stop and breath and stare at John, terrified he’s going to hurt him.  John clenches and squirms around the penetrating fingers, gasping, and, oh god, he needs to be inside John, needs to have John around him, engulfing him, needs there not to be a disconnect between them at all anymore.

                  He feels a hand on his, an insistent tugging, finds himself looking down, and John’s voice reaches him again.  “Inside me, god, inside me, _now_ , need you--”

                  He’s shaking, he’s trembling so fiercely at being given what he wants so much, and when he finally enters John, it’s with a cry that should have cracked the heavens down around them, surely.  He’s coming apart, walls crumbling, earthquake around him, shaking so hard, such heat, John beneath him, John crying out, and they are moving together, one body, a sinuous, unsteady rhythm of up-and-down.  His breath sobs in his throat, his hands against John’s clutch and hold, and John grips just as tightly back.

                  It’s infinity opening before him, mind going blank, racing thoughts quelled and submerged in John-- _John_ \--the only person who can absorb all that he has been, and all that he is now, and emerge unchanged.  John, his rock, his anchor, his other--

                  --his climax is torn from him, sharp and jangling and painful, but clean, bucking and spilling into the heat, the whole, the world of him.  Sweat-soaked and gasping, wrecked and ruined, he pauses, then frees one hand to twist around John, who is still moaning and moving, desperate, beneath and around him.

                  It only takes a few strokes, and then John’s face is contorting in desperate pleasure as he tightens even more.  “Sh-sherlock!” he gasps out, and Sherlock’s eyes widen; as John slumps, muscles relaxing around him, and opens his eyes with a sleepy, beaming smile, he kisses him ferociously, tracing his tongue across every well-known line and crevice, John’s eager cry echoing in his ears.

                  It’s the first time Sherlock has had a name he could accept in three hundred years.


End file.
